Former Marine and FBI Analyst Sentenced to 10 Years for Transferring Classified Information to Assist in Overthrow of Philippine Government

WASHINGTON—A former Marine who worked at times under two administrations in the
Office of the Vice President of the United States was sentenced today to 10
years in prison for espionage and other charges for taking and transferring
classified information to senior political and government officials of the
Philippines in an attempt to destabilize and overthrow that country’s
government, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Kenneth L.
Wainstein and U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced.

U.S. District Judge William H. Walls sentenced Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, for his
guilty pleas to espionage charges on May 4, 2006. There is no parole in the
federal system, and Aragoncillo can be expected to serve nearly the entire
sentence except for potential good-inmate credits. Judge Walls also fined
Aragoncillo $40,000.

“Those charged with protecting the nation have a special responsibility to
maintain their oath of loyalty to the United States,” said Assistant Attorney
General Wainstein. “As a former U.S. Marine and FBI analyst, Aragoncillo
betrayed that oath, violated our espionage laws, and now must suffer the
consequences of his actions.”

“Aragoncillo is guilty of grave betrayals,” said U.S. Attorney Christie. “He
betrayed his Marine uniform, his adopted country and the trust bestowed on him
as an FBI analyst.”

“The sentencing of Leandro Arangoncillo brings to a close a harmful and
disgraceful story of how a formerly trustworthy FBI employee and U.S. Marine
can turn into an enemy of the American people and the American way of life,”
said FBI Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun. “Aragoncillo and his cohort,
Michael Ray Aquino, have come full circle in the justice system, and for them
the circle ends at a federal penitentiary"

At his plea hearing last year, Aragoncillo admitted that he regularly
transferred to his Philippine contacts national security documents classified
as Secret, and that the information could be used to the injury of the United
States or to the advantage of a foreign nation. He also admitted traveling to
the Philippines in January 2001 to meet his co-conspirators, including during a
visit to the Malacanang Palace, the official residence of the president of the
Philippines.

Aragoncillo admitted that some of the classified information he removed from of
the Office of the Vice President between approximately October 2000 and
February 2002 included information marked Top Secret that related to terrorist
threats to United States government interests in the Philippines.

Aragoncillo, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in the Philippines and most
recently of Woodbury, N.J., was an FBI intelligence analyst at Fort Monmouth,
N.J. at the time of his arrest in 2005. He admitted that his espionage activity
continued during his time as an FBI analyst.

Aragoncillo and Michael Ray Aquino, a former Philippines National Police
official, were arrested on Sept. 10, 2005. Aquino was among those to whom
Aragoncillo passed classified information.

Judge Walls sentenced Aquino yesterday to 76 months in federal prison for his
guilty plea to unlawfully possessing and retaining documents and information
relating to the national defense.

Aragoncillo pleaded guilty to four counts of an Indictment: Conspiracy to
Transmit National Defense Information; Transmission of National Defense
Information; Unlawful Retention of National Defense Information; and Unlawful
Use of a Government Computer.

Christie credited Special Agents of the FBI Newark Division, under the direction
of Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun, for their investigation of the espionage
case.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karl H. Buch and Michael
Buchanan, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division, and Clifford I.
Rones, Senior Trial Attorney, Counterespionage Section, U.S. Department of
Justice in Washington.